not to defeat a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal, but again to make good the often-tried superiority of Roman arms and Roman tactics in opposition to the barbarians of the north—­an object which required no genius, but merely a stern and capable soldier.  But it was precisely a time when nothing was so difficult as the unprejudiced settlement of a question of administration.  The government was, as it could not but be and as the Jugurthine war had already shown, so utterly bankrupt in public opinion, that its ablest generals had to retire in the full career of victory, whenever it occurred to an officer of mark to revile them before the people and to get himself as the candidate of the opposition appointed by the latter to the head of affairs.  It was no wonder that what took place after the victories of Metellus was repeated on a greater scale after the defeats of Gnaeus Mallius and Quintus Caepio.  Once more Gaius Marius came forward, in spite of the law which prohibited the holding of the consulship more than once, as a candidate for the supreme magistracy; and not only was he nominated as consul and charged with the chief command in the Gallic war, while he was still in Africa at the head of the army there, but he was reinvested with the consulship for five years in succession (650-654)—­in a way, which looked like an intentional mockery of the exclusive spirit that the nobility had exhibited in reference to this very man in all its folly and shortsightedness, but was also unparalleled in the annals of the republic, and in fact absolutely incompatible with the spirit of the free constitution of Rome.  In the Roman military system in particular—­the transformation of which from a burgess-militia into a body of mercenaries, begun in the African war, was continued and completed by Marius during his five years of a supreme command unlimited through the exigencies of the time still more than through the terms of his appointment—­the profound traces of this unconstitutional commandership-in-chief of the first democratic general remained visible for all time.

Roman Defensive

The new commander-in-chief, Gaius Marius, appeared in 650 beyond the Alps, followed by a number of experienced officers—­among whom the bold captor of Jugurtha, Lucius Sulla, soon acquired fresh distinction—­ and by a numerous host of Italian and allied soldiers.  At first he did not find the enemy against whom he was sent.  The singular people, who had conquered at Arausio, had in the meantime (as we have already mentioned), after plundering the country to the west of the Rhone, crossed the Pyrenees and were carrying on a desultory warfare in Spain with the brave inhabitants of the northern coast and of the interior; it seemed as if the Germans wished at their very first appearance in the field of history to display their lack of persistent grasp.  So Marius found ample time on the one hand to reduce the revolted Tectosages to obedience, to confirm afresh the wavering fidelity of the subject